Instagram and Snapchat are Most Popular Social Networks for Teens; Black Teens are Most Active on Social Media, Messaging Apps

A new nationally representative survey of 790 American teenagers shows that nearly all teens age 13-17 (94 percent) use social media platforms. This study by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research points to Snapchat, a multifaceted application for sharing short-lived images and video narratives as well as engaging with news, and Instagram, a photo and video sharing application, as the most popular social media platforms among teens.

76 percent of American teens age 13-17 use Instagram.

75 percent of teens use Snapchat.

66 percent of teens use Facebook, essentially flat from 2015, when data showed 71 percent of U.S. teens using the site.1

47 percent of teens use Twitter.

Fewer than 30 percent of American teens use Tumblr, Twitch, or LinkedIn.

Building on historically greater uptake of smartphones, black teens are more likely to use certain social media platforms—especially those designed and optimized for mobile use—and to use Instagram and Snapchat more frequently than white teens.

17 percent of black teens use LinkedIn; just 7 percent of white teens say the same.

40 percent of black teens say they use Snapchat almost constantly and 33 percent say the same for Instagram. Just 22 percent of white teens say they use Snapchat that frequently; for Instagram, it is 19 percent.

Black teens are particularly connected to messaging apps, using more apps and using them more frequently than other teens. They are also more enthusiastic about video chatting and live streaming video.

18 percent of black teens use five or more messaging apps, compared with 6 percent of white teens.

Black teens are more likely than white teens to use a number of these apps at least daily, including:

Skype or FaceTime (32 percent vs. 12 percent)

Kik (26 percent vs. 11 percent of white teens)

87 percent of black teens video chat with friends and family compared with 72 percent of white teens.

Most American teens (91%) use the regular text messaging tool that’s built into their mobile phone. But many also use messaging apps to exchange messages, group chat, talk, and share video with friends.

40 percent of teens use a messaging app like Kik, WhatsApp, or Line.

Of teens who do use messaging apps, virtually all (98 percent) still use regular text messaging or iMessage. Few teens rely solely on apps.

Among all teens, those in households earning less than $50,000 a year are more likely to use Kik, Facebook Messenger, Line, and Viber compared to those in households earning $50,000 or more a year. Lower-income teens are also more likely to say they use Kik, Facebook Messenger, and Viber more frequently than higher-income teens.

Among U.S. teens, 44% live stream video from their phone or computer on a site like YouNow, Periscope, or Facebook. Black teens are more likely than Hispanic teens to live stream video from their smartphone or computer (56 percent vs. 34 percent).

The data for this report were collected in a nationally representative survey fielded between December 7 and December 31, 2016, using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 790 teens age 13 to 17 after consent was granted by a parent or guardian.

Technology remains a central part of the lives of many American teens, especially socially-oriented online applications or platforms that connect them to peers, parents, and other adults, as well as to news and information. Quantifying how many teens use which devices, social media and text messaging tools is essential to understanding the spread of each new platform and app among youth and identifying where gaps still lie in the degrees of access of different groups to these platforms. These gaps have implications for education and workforce readiness. Additionally, recent research suggests these social information tools and platforms have become primary spots for young people to encounter news and information.2

This new study, conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research interviewed 790 U.S. teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 about their ownership and access to devices and applications. The study examines which social media, discussion, and messaging platforms American youth use, as well as their use of tools for viewing, streaming, and chatting with video.

Tablets are now more common than desktop computers for teens, presenting both challenges and opportunities.

Most of today’s teens have a variety of technologies at their disposal. Laptops are the dominant mode of computer access for youth—80 percent of teens personally have or have access to a laptop computer, while desktop computers trail behind with 54 percent who have access. However, more common than desktop computers are tablets, which are increasingly becoming part of teens’ hardware repertoire. More than two in three teens (68 percent) have or have access to a tablet.

While teens of all ages are equally likely to have access to a laptop, the youngest teens have greater access to desktop and tablet computers than do older teens. Sixty-two percent of 13-year-olds have or have access to a desktop computer, compared with half of teens between the ages of 15 and 17 (51 percent). Similarly, 77 percent of 13-year-olds have access to a tablet, compared with two in three 14-year-olds (65 percent) and 15-17 year-olds (66 percent).

Household income is also a determining factor in access to computers, particularly desktops and tablets. While fewer than half of teens in households making $50,000 or less (47 percent) or between $50,000 and $100,000 (49 percent) have access to a desktop, two-thirds (66 percent) of teens in households with incomes of $100,000 or more have access to one. Similarly, 60 percent of teens in households with incomes of $50,000 or less and 66 percent of teens with household incomes between $50,000 and $100,000 have access to a tablet, compared with more than three-quarters (77 percent) of teens with household incomes of $100,000 or more.

This rising access to tablets presents opportunities and challenges for education that play out differently for American teenagers, depending on their family income. Tablets are easier for touch-screen facilitated content creation and collaboration, making them ideal for use in innovative ways in the classroom.3 However, tablets present difficulties with text entry—where traditional computers excel—which can make writing a paper or completing other written assignments more challenging. The wealthiest teens are more likely to have both tablets and “regular” computers at their disposal. While nearly three in four teens (74 percent) with household incomes of $100,000 or more per year have access to both a tablet and a desktop or laptop computer, the same is true for 63 percent of teens with incomes of $50,000 to $100,000 and 55 percent of teens with household incomes of less than $50,000 per year.

By the same token, lower-income teens are not only less likely to have both a tablet and a traditional computer, but they are also more likely to rely solely on handheld devices (i.e., a smartphone, regular cell phone, or tablet). One in 10 teens with household incomes less than $50,000 (11 percent) have access only to a handheld device, twice as many as mid-income teens (5 percent) and higher-income teens (4 percent). Increasingly, low-income households rely on handheld devices for tasks such as job-searching and helping out with homework, activities that often can be completed more easily on traditional computers that are more expensive than a mobile device.4

Teens continue to gain access to smartphones, and those phones are increasingly important conduits of connectivity. Virtually all teens (97 percent) access the internet on a cell phone, tablet or other mobile device at least occasionally. Overall, 89 percent of teens have or have access to a smartphone, up from 73 percent in 2015.5 Similarly, there is a decline in “regular” mobile phones, with just 19 percent of teens having access to one, down from 2015, when three in 10 had access to a regular phone. Just 12% of teens say they have access to both a smartphone and a regular mobile phone.

Age, race, and income play a role in whether teens have “dumb” phones or smartphones, continuing patterns that have been developing since the advent of smartphones in 2007. Virtually all teens age 16 and 17 have a smartphone (96 percent), compared with somewhat fewer, but still a large majority of, teens age 13 through 15 (85 percent). As for race, black teens are the most likely to have access to a smartphone (95 percent), followed by white (89 percent) and Hispanic teens (86 percent). This pattern is consistent with earlier research, which found that 85 percent of black teens, 71 percent of white teens, and 71 percent of Hispanic teens had access to a smartphone in 2015.6

Though few teens have cell phones that are not smartphones, lower-income teens are three times more likely to have one than the wealthiest teens. Twenty-seven percent of teens in homes with household incomes below $50,000 per year have access to a regular cell phone, compared with 20 percent of those with a household income of $50,000 to $100,000, and 9 percent with a household income of $100,000 or more.

Nearly all teens use regular texting, and a substantial minority also use messaging apps like Kik, WhatsApp, and Line.

Although a multitude of messaging apps are available to any teen with a smartphone, basic texting through the phone is still the most common method for sending short messages directly to someone else, with 91 percent of teens using regular text messaging as their primary method. However, other messaging apps are common—four in 10 teens use a messaging app like Kik, WhatsApp, or Line. Of teens who do use messaging apps, virtually all (98 percent) also still use regular text messaging or iMessage, with few relying solely on apps.

One third of American teens use Skype or FaceTime, a quarter use Facebook Messenger, and another quarter use Kik. About a fifth use WhatsApp and fewer teens use GroupMe, Line, or Viber. Teens often have multiple tools at their disposal, with the average teen using two of the platforms asked about.7

When it comes to teens’ use of messaging apps, frequency varies substantially. About five percent of teens say they use Kik, Facebook Messenger, or Skype or FaceTime, or “almost constantly,” and about 15 percent use each of the apps at least once a day. Overall, 13 percent of teens who use at least one messaging app say they use it almost constantly.

Many differences emerge in texting use along racial and ethnic lines. Black teens are particularly connected to messaging apps—34 percent use three or more messaging apps, and 18 percent use 5 or more, compared with 20 percent of white teens who use three or more messaging apps and just 6 percent who use five or more. Black teens also use messaging apps more frequently. Black teens are more likely than white teens to use some of these apps at least daily, including Skype or FaceTime (32 percent vs. 12 percent) and Kik (26 percent vs. 11 percent).

Messaging app use also differs by family income. Among all teens, those in households earning less than $50,000 are more likely to use Kik, Facebook Messenger, Line, and Viber compared to those in households earning $50,000 or more. Lower-income teens are also more likely to say they use Kik, Facebook Messenger, and Viber more frequently than higher-income teens.

Social media is ubiquitous among teens. Just 6 percent of 13-17 year-olds in the study said they do not use any social media platform we asked about on our survey.8

Snapchat and Instagram are the most popular platforms, both used by roughly three in four teens. A majority of teens still use Facebook (66 percent), remaining stable since 2015, when 71 percent used the site. Very few teens (10 percent) use LinkedIn. Another 14 percent use anonymous sharing or question apps such as Whisper or YikYak, or Afterschool.

This signals an increase in use of Snapchat and Instagram compared to 2015, when 41 percent reported using Snapchat and 52 percent used Instagram. There is also an increase in use of Twitter (47 percent in 2016 vs. 33 percent in 2015) and Tumblr (28 percent in 2016 vs. 14 percent in 2015).9

Teens use a diverse set of social media platforms, with the average teen using 3 different forms of social media. Although teens visit a variety of sites, use of some of these platforms tends to be connected, with teens who use one of them likely to also use the other. The strongest relationship is between Instagram and Snapchat, both photo-centric platforms. Two in 3 teens (67 percent) use both Snapchat and Instagram, while just 16 percent use one but not the other. Use of Twitter and Tumblr is also related.

Overall, more than half (55 percent) of teens use 3 or fewer social media sites, another 33 percent use 4 or 5 sites, and 12 percent of teens use 6 or 7 forms of social media asked about. Teen who use more than 5 forms of social media tend to be older (73 percent are 15 to 17 years old) and more civically engaged than those who use fewer platforms.10

Teen girls and boys have different preferences for how they spend their time on social media. Teen girls are more likely to spend more of their time on photo or visually oriented sharing sites while boys report more frequent use of the game-oriented social site Twitch. Teen boys and girls are equally likely to use the more classic social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Girls are more likely than boys to say they use Instagram, Snapchat, and Tumblr, and more likely to report using Instagram (29 percent vs. 15 percent of boys) and Snapchat (33 percent vs. 18 percent) “almost constantly.” For Tumblr, girls are more likely report using the platform more than daily, with 10 percent of girls reporting such frequent use compared with 3 percent of teen boys.

Boys are more likely than girls to use social sites that involve video gaming. Nine percent of boys say they visit Twitch, a streaming site centered on video games, daily, while just 3 percent of girls say the same.

Teens age 15-17 are more active on social media than teens age 13-14. They are more likely to use all platforms asked about and use more platforms overall. On average, these older teens use four social media platforms while younger teens use an average of three. They are also more frequent users, with older teens more likely than younger teens to use Snapchat (72 percent vs. 50 percent), Instagram (67 percent vs. 49 percent), Facebook (43 percent vs. 33 percent), Twitter (35 percent vs. 10 percent), and Tumblr (11 percent vs. 5 percent) at least daily.

Some differences also emerge along racial and ethnic lines. Black teens (86 percent) are more likely than either Hispanic teens (74 percent) or white teens (71 percent) to use Snapchat, and more likely than white teens to use Tumblr (35 percent vs. 22 percent) or LinkedIn (17 percent vs. 7 percent).

Fewer differences emerge in frequency of use, but black teens are more likely than white teens to say they use both Instagram (33 percent vs. 19 percent) and Snapchat (40 percent vs. 22 percent) almost constantly.

Income is also related to social media use. Teens in households earning $100,000 a year or more are more likely to use Instagram than those in households earning less (82 percent vs. 72 percent), but they are less likely to use LinkedIn (5 percent vs. 13 percent). Those in higher-earning households are also less likely to say they are almost constantly on Facebook, with just 3 percent saying so compared to 15 percent of those in lower-earning households.

Political engagement is also related to differences in social media behavior. Teens who say they learned civic skills in school are more likely to say they use Twitter (49 percent vs. 32 percent) than those who did not, and they use it more frequently, with 8 percent saying they are on Twitter almost constantly compared to just 1 percent among those who have not learned civic skills in school. These civically educated teens are also more likely to say they use Instagram at least daily (62 percent vs. 40 percent).

Finally, teens with access to a smartphone are more likely to use Instagram (80 percent vs. 37 percent) and Snapchat (79 percent vs. 40 percent) than those without access to one. These platforms are used primarily through phone- or tablet-based apps, so these differences are not surprising.

Whether video chatting, live streaming, or using YouTube, video is a big part of most teens’ online lives. As smartphones become more capable, data plans more accommodating, and content more delightful and varied, teens increasingly view and create video. Most teens (76 percent) video chat with friends or family. Nearly half live stream video from their phone or computer on a site like YouNow, Periscope, or Facebook. But YouTube use is the most ubiquitous, as almost all teens (96 percent) view video on YouTube. And many use it often; 78 percent say they are on YouTube at least daily, with 28 percent saying they use it constantly.

While all teens use YouTube in high numbers, those age 15-17 are more likely to use it than younger teens (98 percent vs. 93 percent). Teen boys use it more often than teen girls, with 85 percent of boys saying they use YouTube at least daily compared to 70 percent of girls. Teen girls are more likely than teen boys to video chat with friends and family (82 percent vs. 70 percent).

More black teens than white teens say they video chat (87 percent vs. 72 percent). Black teens also are more likely than Hispanic teens to live stream video from their smartphone or computer (56 percent vs. 34 percent).

Lower-income teens use YouTube more often, with 36 percent of those in households earning less than $50,000 saying they use it almost constantly, while just 23 percent of those in households earning more say the same.

Teens with smartphones are far more likely to say they video chat than those without smartphone access (79 percent vs. 51 percent).

A subset of teens uses the internet to connect with others in ways other than messaging apps and social media. Roughly a quarter (27 percent) read or comment on discussion sites like Reddit, a number in line with data collected by researchers in 2015, suggesting a static pattern of use for such sites.11

Another 18 percent of American teens say they meet new people online through chat sites, with teens in lower-income households more likely to say they do so. A quarter of those in households earning less than $50,000 say they meet new people online compared to just 15 percent of those in households earning more. Still, most teens do not do engage in either of these activities.

Tablets are now more common than desktops among teens, which has implications for privacy and content creation.

Teens increasingly connect and compute in entirely untethered ways. As the use of desktops wanes, laptops and tablets have become the most common ways for teens to access robust computing devices. But this shift away from desktops and towards tablets has implications, most notably for school work. Tablets are optimized for viewing and touch-screen use, but are less than ideal for generating large amounts of text or complex multimedia. Low-income teens are especially likely to encounter these text-entry challenges, as they are more likely to only have internet access via a regular phone, a smartphone, or a tablet. This shift to a completely untethered computing environment also allows teens more privacy in their internet and computer use as these devices can be more easily moved from public areas to more private ones.

Teens continue to shift the apps and platforms where they spend time.

Continuing a nearly two-decade-long pattern of moving from older platforms toward newer ones, teens look for the first-mover advantage. They have shifted away from previously popular sites like Facebook toward apps like Instagram and Snapchat that have different features and tools where they can make their online social networks anew. These newer sites also privilege video and photo content, offering teens new ways to creatively share their lives with their networks. Similarly, a substantial group of teens have staked a claim to messaging apps as a space to communicate with others, and those wishing to reach teens should increasingly consider finding ways to use messaging apps to do so.

Black teens continue to lead their peers in adoption and use of mobile social technologies.

Building on historically greater use of smartphones, black teens flock more quickly to newer spaces online—like social media platforms and messaging apps—and use those spaces more frequently than white teens. For those interested in understanding and reaching black youth, social media and messaging apps are critical.

This survey was conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and with funding from NORC at the University of Chicago. Data were collected using AmeriSpeak, NORC’s probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. household population. The survey was part of a larger study that included questions about other topics not included in this report. During the initial recruitment phase of the panel, randomly selected U.S. households were sampled with a known, non-zero probability of selection from the NORC National Sample Frame and then contacted by U.S. mail, email, telephone, and field interviewers (face-to-face). The panel provides sample coverage of approximately 97 percent of the U.S. household population. Those excluded from the sample include people with P.O. Box only addresses, some addresses not listed in the USPS Delivery Sequence File, and some newly constructed dwellings.

Interviews for this survey were conducted between December 7 and December 31, 2016, with teenagers age 13-17 representing the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Adult panel members were randomly drawn from AmeriSpeak, and after confirming that there were children of the appropriate age in the household, permission was sought from a parent or guardian to survey a teenager. If a given panelist had multiple teens at home, one teen was randomly selected to participate. Completed interviews were conducted with 790 teenagers, 739 via the web and 51 via telephone. Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish, depending on respondent preference.

The final stage completion rate is 31.5 percent, the weighted household panel response rate is 34.3 percent, and the weighted household panel retention rate is 95 percent, for a cumulative response rate of 10.3 percent. The overall margin of sampling error is +/- 4.6 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level, including the design effect. The margin of sampling error may be higher for subgroups.

Once the sample has been selected and fielded, and all the study data have been collected and made final, a poststratification process is used to adjust for any survey nonresponse as well as any non-coverage or under- and oversampling resulting from the study-specific sample design. Poststratification variables at the adult level included age, sex, education, race/ethnicity, housing tenure, telephone status, and Census division. This produced a weight for each teen that was then adjusted so as to be calibrated to the external controls totals for age, sex, race/ethnicity, Census division, and household income for the U.S. population of teenagers age 13-17. Weighting variables were obtained from the 2016 Current Population Survey. The weighted data were used for all analyses.

All differences reported between subgroups of the U.S. population are at the 95 percent level of statistical significance, meaning that there is only a 5 percent (or lower) probability that the observed differences could be attributed to chance variation in sampling.

A comprehensive listing of the questions, complete with tabulations of top-level results for each question, is available on The AP-NORC Center website: www.apnorc.org.

The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research taps into the power of social science research and the highest-quality journalism to bring key information to people across the nation and throughout the world.

The Associated Press (AP) is the world’s essential news organization, bringing fast, unbiased news to all media platforms and formats.

NORC at the University of Chicago is one of the oldest and most respected independent research institutions in the world.

The two organizations have established The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research to conduct, analyze, and distribute social science research in the public interest on newsworthy topics, and to use the power of journalism to tell the stories that research reveals.